Gallup: Hey, Republicans are back up 5

posted at 10:12 am on September 14, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Why go on a roller coaster? It’s not the destination, it’s the ride — right? Keep that in mind as we plumb the ever-entertaining and decreasingly informative Gallup generic Congressional survey. This week starts with an odd-numbered day, which means Republicans must be leading again. Voila!

Registered-voter preferences for Congress since the beginning of August have averaged 48% for Republican candidates and 43% for Democratic candidates, identical to this week’s results. While there have been a few instances in recent months when the Republicans were not ahead to at least some degree — including in mid-July, when the Democrats were up by six percentage points, and last week, when the parties were tied at 46% — the broad picture has generally been positive for the Republicans.

Currently, 90% of Democratic voters plan to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district, while 96% of Republicans favor the Republican, matching the highest level of Republican loyalty Gallup has found all year. Independents continue to favor Republican over Democratic candidates, now by a 10-point margin, 44% to 34%.

Why is this decreasingly informative? First, Gallup has been unreliable even within its own trending. Republicans lead by six, then Democrats lead by five, and then Republicans go back up by six, and then it’s suddenly even. Six Flags doesn’t provide this kind of thrills and chills.

Next, why is Gallup still using a registered voter survey? That’s a weak sample type in presidential election years, where turnout gets to about 60% in a good cycle. It’s even less informative in midterms. Ninety percent of Democrats support Democrats in this election, but how many are likely to vote? Independents favor the GOP by ten, but how many of them are likely to show up at a voting booth on November 2nd, and which independents are most likely to show up?

With seven weeks to go before the election, those are the answers needed to build a turnout model for a likely voter screen. Gallup seems disinterested in doing so, though, while their competitors have all shifted to likely-voter screens and turnout models.

Gallup did find increased enthusiasm among Democratic voters this week, but that still leaves them 18 points behind the GOP. Yet, even with that narrowing from the 23-point gap in the last three surveys, Gallup still shows the GOP adding five points to the topline gap. In other words, Gallup is a mess.

Blowback

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Why go on a roller coaster? It’s not the destination, it’s the ride — right? Keep that in mind as we plumb the ever-entertaining and decreasingly informative Gallup generic Congressional survey.
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Gallup can be compared to other polls, but that still doesn’t empirically prove anything — they can be outliers all the way up until the final week of October and there’s no way to show if they’re right or wrong until the last poll before voters actually vote in November. So if someone or some group within the organization wants to fiddle with the numbers to create a more exciting race and/or higher hopes on the Democratic side, there’s no way to call them on it, other than point out any gaming of the internal numbers.

After what has been done to our country in the last 18 months, I’m surprised it’s not 99% in favor of somebody else — allowing for 1% of the people who are mentally ill. There must be more mentally ill people than I first realized.

With seven weeks to go before the election, those are the answers needed to build a turnout model for a likely voter screen. Gallup seems disinterested in doing so, though, while their competitors have all shifted to likely-voter screens and turnout models.

With all the wild fluctuations in the Gallup generic-ballot poll, it seems like they’ve lost interest in statistics.

Even Quinnipiac, which usually trends left of actual election results, has now adopted a likely-voter screen. I was actually sampled in a Q-poll the other night in CT, and the pollster asked (for both the senatorial and gubernatorial election) whether I would “definitely vote”, “probably vote”, or “not vote” in each election, and also whether I would either “definitely vote” for a candidate or “maybe change my mind”.

Interestingly enough, with 7 weeks to go, the Q-poll showed Linda McMahon closing the gap on Dick Blumenthal for Senate, now only down 51-45. The reported results didn’t say how much of that was firm support, or from people who could change their mind. This could get interesting…

Makes sense to me the always accurate Rassmussen poll has it +12 , others say +10 , and Gallop gets a phone call from a few union thugs after speaking to people in the White House ,and the SPLIT the difference
Propaganda can only work if it is SOMEWHAT believable

Gallup is not trying to predict the election, they are trying to tell you what Americans think about it – the same way they want to tell you what Americans think about religion, or whether football is the number one sport or not.

Gallup’s brand is “public opinion” not making political predictions based on sampling.

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
~John Adams